Please i need your advice. I paid a landlord £580 for deposit of house. And the full rent was £580. I am supposed to sign the contract today. But after going through the environment. It was not conducive for me. I beg him to refund my money since i have not sign any contract but he refuse. I also beg him to refund part of the money if he cant refund the full money but he refuse to refund my deposit. Please is there any thing i can do
Legally, a LL is only allowed to take from you 1 weeks rent as a holding deposit.
They are allowed to retain that if you pull out.
He appears to have taken an illegally high rental holding deposit, and therefore could be liable for a fine. I believe trading standards are the body who enforces the Tenant fees Act. You may wish to contact them, Citizens advice centre, Shelter, or a property solicitor for advice.
Or simply highlight the tenant fees act to your landlord, and either ask him to refund 100% to avoid you making a complaint to the authorities, or just be satisfied to ask him to refund all but the 1 week he would have been allowed to keep if he had followed the rules.
Thank you so much for this advise. This is my first rental and he asked me and i told him sincerely. I guess that is why he is treating me this way. I will look for the tenancy act and beg him for refund again. Before reporting him… i have been him to refund part of the money even if it is not full but he refused.
next time do not be so hasty. Check out the environment first
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I have learnt my lesson.
It all depends on the circumstances, really. My agent collects one week’s holding deposit, whilst I take references. Once the references are passed and moving in date is agreed and cleaning has been done one day earlier in readiness for the tenancy to start and the the remaining rent is paid the day before the tenancy start date to ensure clearance on the tenancy date, then if on the moving in date the tenant does not sign and refuses to move in, then surely the tenant will liable for more than one week rent. I had tenants who mucked us around for 3 weeks. I met them and they had not completed the reference forms, as there were some crucial important points left out, like previous 3 years rental addresses and the tenants and guarantors passport, evidence of income. They said they will provide it all but as I said 3 weeks passsed by and nothing provided. Their one week’s holding deposit needed to be kept by the agent but I have no idea what happened. This is because the reference form stated that all information on the form to be provided or any delay in providing this information, then the holding deposit will be retained. The deposit needed to be kept, I beleive. However, I hope the agents returned it. Some agents do keep after I prove to them that the refernce had failed. They do not pass anything to the landlord. In your case, the landlord should return most of the rent, only keep one week’s rent any other costs incurred due to the expected start of the tenancy.
Wrong tigerlillies. In this case the landlord must return ALL of the money. None of it was taken as a holding deposit so there are no grounds to retain any.
Thank you all for the advice. I calledthe landlord today and he refuse to pick my calls
Send him a legal Letter Before Action. I think there is a template on the Shelter website. Also report him to Action Fraud
Please where can i get a legal letter… because i know solicitors will charge me more than £500 for that. I will try to report him now on action fraud.
As I said, try the Shelter website.
See the recommendation in my post above.
I never received any deposit at all. I never take deposit until I get correctly completed reference form and documents requested, so you cannot say I should have returned the deposit that was never received by me.
Once the references did fail, I told the agent and they asked me to send evidence
I sent evidence of failed references and how much I paid for references, they kept the holding deposit, on the basis they did the viewings. I don’t use that agent at all.
My comment was not about your case tigerlillies, it was about your comment above on Nazas case. The action you suggested is illegal.
This appears a contradiction. If an agent took a holding deposit, this was taken on your behalf. Hence YOU as a Landlord took a holding deposit ‘via’ your agent. This was subsequently retained by the agent. This would be considered as ‘retained by you & paid to the agent’